Mutation analysis and its industrial applications

We are pleased to introduce the second part of the special issue on Mutation Testing of the Journal of Software Testing, Verification & Reliability.

The issue features the following four papers:

1. HOTFUZ: cost-effective higher-order mutation-based fault localization by Jong-In Jang, Duksan Ryu, and Jongmoon Baik which proposes HOTFUZ, a novel cost-effective tool for reducing the cost of mutation-based fault localization (MBFL). HOTFUZ uses higher order mutations to evaluate multiple mutations at once which reduces the cost of mutation testing, which is a significant impediment in MBFL techniques.
2. MuFBDTester: A mutation-based test sequence generator for FBD programs implementing nuclear power plant software by Lingjun Liu, Eunkyoung Jee and Doo-Hwan Bae. This paper presents MuFBDTester, an automated test sequence generation tool using mutation testing techniques for Function Block Diagram (FBD) programs. MuFBDTester translates the given program and mutants into the input language of a Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solver to derive a set of test sequences.
3. TRANSMUT–Spark: Transformation Mutation for Apache Spark by Joao Batista de Souza Neto, Anamaria Martins Moreira, Genoveva Vargas-Solar, and Martin A. Musicante. The paper explores the application of mutation testing in Apache Spark programs, and proposes TRANSMUT-Spark for automating mutation testing of Big Data processing code within Apache Spark programs.
4. A mapping study on mutation testing for mobile applications by Henrique Neves da Silva, Jackson Antonio do Prado Lima, Silvia Regina Vergilio and Andre Takeshi Endo, which analyzed 16 primary studies according to the trends and statistics about the field, the study characteristics (such as focus, proposed operators, and automated support for the mutation testing phases), and the evaluation aspects.

We thank the editors, authors, and reviewers for their efforts to successfully complete this special issue.